I flew the 6 a.m. departure DCA-ATL, with a scheduled 37 minute connection to the 8:30 a.m. departure ATL-SFO, figuring I had a better chance at an upgrade on the 757 ex-song aircraft than on the 9:30 a.m. departure, which today was a BE equiped 767 (I was right, as I was upgraded ATL-SFO 5 days out). I thought I would hit an upgrade on the DCA-ATL leg, a 12 seat F cabin MD-90, which was wide open when I bought the ticket, but for the first time in a year I found myself behind the curtain, #8 on the upgrade list for 0 seats. As it was hard to be too disappointed, considering that I had just scored two beautiful op-ups on a recent trip to the UK, I took my seat in row 11, got lucky that the middle seat was empty, and with the aid of two bloody marys in the CRC and noise canceling headphones, slept all the way to final approach.

The DCA-ATL leg got going on time (the door closed at 0556, and we were in the air by 0615). However, because of traffic, we didn't touch down until 0755, and I was not off the plane until 0807. We docked at B4, and the SFO flight was at B28. I made it to B28 in 7 minutes, not too bad for a fat 54 year old with short legs. When I arrived, mine was the only empty seat in F; this raised a question--if I had not made it to the gate in ATL by 0815, 15 minutes prior to departure, could they have given my seat away to others? If so, this would in reality make a 37 minute connection time a 22 minute connection time. In fairness to the two GAs working at B28, they were cordial to me and didn't make any kind of deal out of me being one of the last to board.

I had a positive experience with the FA crew, who helped me get my two carry-ons stowed despite the overhead bins being 100% full (one bag went into a closet, the other went behind the last row in F), let me sleep, served me breakfast when I wanted it, and otherwise was real good.

The only negative was that, once again, the seat cushion was basically as uncomfortable as heck; sitting on two little DL pillows didn't help. Are there others that find the seat cushions in F cabins on DL uncomfortable?

The DL pilots did a terrific job flying the plane, as there was a significant amount of turbulence today all across the country. They basically circled around a storm (usually this flight overflies central Arkansas and overhead Tulsa; today they swerved north and overflew Springfield, MO)--it was particularly rough over the Rockies and Great Basin. At the end of the flight, we took a totally different route into SFO; the captain reported that in 26 years of flying in and out of SFO, it was the first time he had ever landed a plane to the east (which was my experience as well; I'd never been on a flight that landed any way other than to the west). I first figured out we were on a different routing when we overflew the Altamont Pass, which is generally the route to runway 29 at OAK (the route into SFO to the west involves flying close to the Sunol Grade), then turning north with I-680 visible on the left hand side of the plane, then just south of Walnut Creek turning northwest so that Moraga and Orinda were visible, then there were spectacular views of downtown Oakland and my native city of Alameda, reaching the Bay roughly at the foot of Powell Street in Emeryville, then flying out basically over the Golden Gate Bridge (I didn't have my camera at my seat, which is a shame, because I've never quite seen San Francisco from the air like this), and the Farallon Islands 25 miles out to sea were quite visible, then we turned to the left, with the Olympic Club golf course and Daly City clearly in view, and then headed to SFO runway 10L with the Colma cemeteries in clear view, descending over South San Francisco and San Bruno to land. I'm guessing the fact that we were actually pushed along by a tail wind upon reaching California had something to do with this.

You know, I'm almost to 2 million miles on the Big D, and, for all the horror stories you hear (or see on this website) about how crummy traveling is, it still never gets old.